Clive McFarlane: Racial divide talks often fall off topic

Wednesday

May 6, 2015 at 11:51 AMMay 6, 2015 at 11:52 AM

On the matter of race in America, President Barack Obama has at times been wobbly in confronting the issue.

A good example of this would be his so-called Beer Summit in the Rose Garden, during which he tried to alleviate the tension between black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr and white police Sgt. James Crowley, who had arrested Mr. Gates for disorderly conduct.

Because of a jammed door lock, Mr. Gates had found it necessary to force his way into his home in Cambridge. Someone called in a possible break-in, which brought Sgt. Crowley to the house. But despite showing the officer his identification, Mr. Gates was arrested, apparently because he demanded the officer’s identification and accused him of racial bias.

It was a confrontation that while heated didn’t seem deserving of an arrest. Indeed, President Obama criticized Sgt. Crowley for “acting stupidly.”

The president was taken to task for this remark, and the Beer Summit, at which Mr. Gates and Sgt. Crowley would sit down and try to air out their differences over beers, was his attempt to de-escalate the issue.

But the confrontation at Mr. Gates’ house was more than just a misunderstanding, and in Sgt. Crowley’s words afterward, the summit appeared to have been just empty symbolism.

“I think what you had today was two gentlemen agreeing to disagree on a particular issue,” he said. “I don’t think that we spent too much time dwelling on the past. We spent a lot of time discussing the future.”

But the reluctance to dwell meaningfully on the past is at the heart of racial unrest in the country and at long last Mr. Obama is finally and unflinchingly saying so.

Yes, he continues to sound the comforting mantra that appeals to both sides of the political spectrum — the idea that “no matter who you are, no matter what you look like, no matter where you came from, no matter what your circumstances were, if you work hard, if you take responsibility, then America is a place where you can make something of your lives.”

Yet, the president is also now saying in no uncertain terms that when it comes to race in America, the past is prologue.

“What we’ve also understood for too long is that some communities have consistently had the odds stacked against them; that there’s a tragic history in this country that has made it tougher for some,” he said earlier this week at a function at Lehman College in New York.

“And folks living in those communities, and especially young people living in those communities, could use some help to change those odds.

“You all know the numbers. By almost every measure, the life chances of the average young man of color is worse than his peers. Those opportunity gaps begin early — often at birth — and they compound over time, becoming harder and harder to bridge, making too many young men and women feel like no matter how hard they try, they may never achieve their dreams.

“And that sense of unfairness and of powerlessness, of people not hearing their voices, that’s helped fuel some of the protests that we’ve seen in places like Baltimore, and Ferguson, and right here in New York.

“… In too many places in this country, black boys and black men, Latino boys, Latino men, they experience being treated differently by law enforcement — in stops and in arrests, and in charges and incarcerations. The statistics are clear, up and down the criminal justice system; there’s no dispute.”

The president also noted that if in responding to these bursts of racial unrest we are just “looking at policing, we’re looking at it too narrowly.”

“If we ask the police to simply contain and control problems that we ourselves have been unwilling to invest and solve, that’s not fair to the communities, it’s not fair to the police,” he said.

The New York function was held to announce an alliance that will help support My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative the president launched a year ago to provide opportunities for young people, particularly those of color. The alliance has so far committed some $80 million toward that effort.

This is a model that cities and towns like Ferguson, Baltimore and New York would do well to emulate, which is, acknowledge the corrosive unfairness of the current system and then work creatively and constructively to build a better future.

Clive McFarlane is a columnist for The Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette.

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